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Testing - TJC Wikipedia Project

The Tennessee Justice Center (TJC) is a non-profit public policy advocacy organization and law firm based in Nashville, Tennessee.

Formation
TJC was established in 1996 to represent low-income Tennesseans through class action lawsuits and public policy advocacy. Earlier in the same year the United States Congress had passed a budget imposing restrictions on the activities of federally funded legal services programs. Specifically, any program receiving federal funds could no longer pursue class actions or lobby before legislatures and government agencies. TJC was founded to continue the activities that Legal Services no longer could.

Gordon Bonnyman
Gordon Bonnyman is co-founder and Executive Director of TJC.

Bonnyman has a BA from Princeton University and a law degree from the University of Tennessee. Since his admission to the bar in 1972, his entire career has been spent serving low-income clients.

As a Legal Services attorney for 23 years, Bonnyman represented thousands of low-income clients in a wide variety of civil matters. His advocacy work in housing, consumer, public benefits, disability rights, nursing home reform, juvenile procedure, civil rights, constitutional rights and health law not only changed the law in significant ways, but also changed lives throughout the nation. In 2007, Bonnyman was honored with the War Horse Award by the Southern Trial Lawyers Association.

Bonnyman has written and lectured extensively, particularly on matters of health law and policy. He has served on numerous state and national boards, including Families USA, the National Juvenile Law Center, National Citizens' Coalition for Nursing Home Reform, the Nashville Bar Association, and the Tennessee Alliance for Legal Services.

Bonnyman has received awards for public service and advocacy from numerous organizations, including the American Bar Association, the American Cancer Society, the Tennessee Conference on Social Welfare, the ACLU of Tennessee, the Tennessee Primary Care Association, Families USA Foundation, the National Legal Aid and Defender Association, the Tennessee Bar Association, the Nashville Bar Association, the Metropolitan Nashville Human Relations Commission, Tennessee Association of Mental Health, National Center for Law and Economic Justice, and The University of Alabama School of Law / Skadden Arps.

Bonnyman was named Tennessean of the Year by The Tennessean in 2003. The Tennessean praised his work on behalf of low-income Tennesseans: “By making the plight of the least in society more visible, Bonnyman has raised the bar for all Tennesseans. The state now is forced at least to look at how its fiscal and social actions affect the poorest among us before it makes a move.”

Bonnyman says of his work, "We serve families who, in the midst of poverty, misfortune and injustice, inspire us with their courage and generosity of spirit. Working through the law, we have a chance to make a huge difference in their lives. And by 'speaking truth to power' on their behalf - compelling powerful government and corporate institutions to respect the legal rights of the powerless and the poor - TJC is working to fulfill our nation's pledge of Equal Justice for All. To get to work for such people and ideals is a privilege."

Michele Johnson
Michele Johnson is co-founder and Managing Attorney of TJC, where the focus of her legal work has been children with special health care needs. In that role, she lobbied successfully to extend health care coverage to uninsured children in working families, and participated in a case establishing appeal rights for TennCare patients who are denied care by their HMO. As lead counsel, she negotiated a class action settlement requiring comprehensive reform of health care for 665,000 Tennessee children enrolled in TennCare. She continues to represent scores of individual children.

Johnson attended the University of Tennessee and graduated with Highest Honors in 1990. After a year of volunteering at a legal services program through the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, she returned to Knoxville to attend University of Tennessee College of Law. While in law school, she volunteered at a shelter for battered women and led the public interest law association. She also clerked at Legal Services of Middle Tennessee and the National Health Law Program.

In 1996, she left Legal Services to begin TJC with a grant from National Association of Public Interest Law (now Equal Justice Works).

Johnson is the winner of the 1999 Child Advocacy Award by the American Bar Association Young Lawyers Division. She was the Lawyer's Association for Women 2006 Nashville ATHENA Award nominee. She serves on the Board of Directors of Tennessee Hemophilia and Bleeding Disorders Foundation. She is President- Elect of the board of Tennessee Voices for Children, and chair of the group's policy committee. She is on the Advisory Board of the Healthy Tomorrows Program, Family Voices of Tennessee, TennCare for Children, and Early Child Health Outreach.

Staff and Funding
According to TJC's official site, the organization has 12 full-time staff.

According to TJC, its annual operating budget is approximately $900,000. Funding comes from foundations, court-awarded attorney's fees, and individual contributions.

Legal Successes

 * A decree protecting children’s right to periodic health screening and all treatment that is medically necessary
 * Consumer protections for TennCare patients when HMOs refuse to provide care prescribed by their doctors
 * A judicial order that requires the state to ensure availability of medically necessary home health care, rather than placing the disabled in nursing homes
 * Numerous court rulings protecting the eligibility of TennCare enrollees from wrongful termination

Current Focus
According to TJC, the organization's current priority is the John B v. Goetz litigation.

In 1996, TJC lawyers began negotiating with Tennessee officials on the issue of the state's compliance with federal Medicaid statutes. Specifically, the plaintiffs alleged that the state failed to provide medical screening and treatment for children that it was required to by federal law. In February 1998, a consent decree - an agreement between TJC and the state of Tennessee - was entered in the John B. litigation. The Decree imposed obligations on the state of Tennessee to provide medical screenings, diagnosis, and treatment for eligible children under the age of 21. In 2004, Judge Nixon found that the state was not in compliance with the Consent Decree. Judge Nixon later recused himself, noting that the state had repeatedly been found in violation of the consent decree, and the case was reassigned to Judge Haynes. In September 2009, the District Court denied the state's motion to vacate the consent decree. The state then appealed to the Sixth Circuit court, which ordered a stay in proceedings. The case is thus currently on hold.

However, TJC's activity in the John B. litigation is not limited to the courtroom. According to TJC, its staff also monitors state compliance with the Decree by taking calls from individual Tennesseans who are members of the John B. plaintiff class and assisting those individuals in navigating the TennCare system. The organization also advocates for legislative and community action it believes will help protect children's healthcare rights in federal law and the Consent Decree.

In the aftermath of the May 2010 Tennessee floods, TJC has begun offering help to flood victims in accessing aid like TennCare, food stamps, cash assistance through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, and FEMA assistance.

Criticisms
In 2004-05, TJC was sharply criticized by Tennessee's then-governor Phil Bredesen, who said that the organization's advocacy made the task of reforming TennCare more difficult. At the time, TJC was itself criticizing elements of Governor Bredesen's TennCare reform plan, especially the hard limits on prescriptions and services. When Governor Bredesen announced details for the reform plan in August 2004, he asked advocates not to "kill" TennCare. When Tennessee sent the reform plan to the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in September 2004, TJC's Executive Director Gordon Bonnyman said the plan was not "responsible," especially in its restrictive definition of medical necessity.

The back-and-forth between the Bredesen administration and TJC continued through the end of 2004 and into 2005. When the state cut almost 200,000 people from TennCare, the Bredesen administration repeadedly blamed TJC for the cuts, saying that the organization's refusal to negotiate left state officials with no other option. TJC responded that the state did in fact have other options, but that officials ignored those options and chose to use TJC as a scapegoat.